Muncie nurse fired for working drunk, loses license

MUNCIE – The state board of nursing has revoked the license of a Muncie registered nurse who showed up for work at a hospital and three nursing homes with alcohol on her breath.

The board is also seeking disciplinary action against a home care registered nurse from New Castle who allegedly abandoned a pediatric patient and committed license renewal fraud and employment application fraud.

Linda S. Bullinger, 55, Muncie, was suspended by IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital in 2008 after fellow employees claimed she reported to work at 7 a.m. in the emergency decision unit with alcohol on her breath and glassy eyes, according to the state attorney general’s office.

Bullinger, who was quoted as saying she had been out drinking until 4 a.m. that day, was fired two months later after being arrested by Muncie police on charges of drunken driving and resisting law enforcement.

After entering a recovery monitoring agreement with the Indiana State Nurses Assistance Program, Bullinger took a job at Edgewater Woods, a nursing home in Anderson that fired her in 2009 for reporting to work with alcohol on her breath.

This past Nov. 25 — while she was on probation for the DUI, for reporting to work after drinking and for failing to disclose her termination from Edgewater Woods when she renewed her license in 2009 — Bullinger was fired from a Miller’s Merry Manor nursing home after reporting to work under the influence of alcohol, according to the attorney general.

Then on March 27, she was fired from Parkview Nursing Center in Muncie for being impaired at work. Her blood alcohol content was 0.258 — more than three times over the legal limit to drive, state officials say.

The Star Press sent a letter seeking comment from Bullinger at the last address she provided to the nursing board.

Meanwhile, the attorney general’s office is asking the nursing board to take disciplinary action against New Castle RN Sharon Lea Johnson, who was fined and reprimanded by the board in 2012 for failing to disclose on her Indiana license renewal form that she had been disciplined by the state of Texas in 2001.

When Johnson renewed her Indiana license in 2013, she allegedly failed to report that she had been fined and reprimanded by the nursing board a year earlier.

And when she applied for employment as a home care RN at Individual Support Home Health Agency, Middletown, in 2011, she allegedly failed to report that she had been disciplined in Texas.

The attorney general also accuses Johnson, who was working for the Middletown agency as a home care RN on Sept. 22, 2012, of abandoning a pediatric client. The client’s father found his son alone in his apartment and lying on the floor in wet diapers at 4 p.m.

Johnson was quoted as saying she had left the child in the care of a man who had appeared in the living room and identified himself as a family member. However, she was unable to describe anything about the man’s facial hair, dress, or whether he wore glasses, when interviewed by Greenfield police.

Nor could Johnson identify the person in whose care she claimed to have left the child when shown photographs of the child’s family.

By failing to transfer the child’s care to his parents or guardian, and instead either leaving the child alone, or by transferring the child’s care to an unknown man, Johnson violated the law, according to the attorney general.

Her license could be suspended, revoked or placed on probation.

Johnson did not respond to a letter The Star Press mailed to the last address she provided to the nursing board.